


St. Andrew's Fall

by altered_eagle



Series: City Goblins [16]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Arkham is a bad bad place, Batjokes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Sickfic, Suicidal Thoughts, The Babysitter's Club - Freeform, author is too high to think of tags, fuckin' a, joker pov, oh man oh god oh man, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 12:12:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14449032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altered_eagle/pseuds/altered_eagle
Summary: When i’m clean and stitched and drugged and put to bed you don’t lie down with me. Instead you pull up a chair next to the head of the bed and oh shit, i realize, i must be in pretty bad shape if you’re monitoring me.i’ve never met anybody as brave as you,you say as you take my hand.Not half as stupid, either.





	St. Andrew's Fall

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the song [St. Andrew's Fall by Blind Melon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5sm-LcQhCo) Thank you [youcouldbeehappy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldbeehappy/pseuds/youcouldbeehappy) for all of your love and encouragement
> 
> CW for like, some blood and gross stuff big shocker right

Pairs and pairs of latex hands roam me and the lights are too bright. They’re all talking about me but nobody talks to me.

People scream in Arkham and people scream in my head so i never quite know which is which.

The doctors make me piss in a jug, and catheterize me so they don’t have to deal with helping me to the bathroom anymore.

They medicate me but all it does is make the screams less frequent.

 

Your old man’s hands are as warm and patient as yours, and yet he has no stake in me. He holds my head as you ease me down to the the bed. He hits a vein on the first try. He tells me what drugs he’s giving me, and why.

i like what i see in you. i like that i can read you but i can’t read you, that after all this time parts of you are still a mystery to me.

When i’m clean and stitched and drugged and put to bed you don’t lie down with me. Instead you pull up a chair next to the head of the bed and oh shit, i realize, i must be in pretty bad shape if you’re monitoring me.

 _i’ve never met anybody as brave as you_ , you say as you take my hand. _Not half as stupid, either._

i laugh. It makes me cough. i’m too high to see anything besides your face i’m too high to hear anything besides your voice. The hallucinations are quiet. The chattering, quiet. You know just how to fine-tune the balance of drugs so that i can simply be, without being everywhere at once. Trial by fire and error.

  
  
_Are you not going to eat,_ the nurse asks me. i don’t say anything.

Ten minutes later they’re holding me down and numbing up my throat and i’m gagging as they stick the nasogastric tube down. My wrists are buckled so i don’t rip the tube out.

 

i spend three days on gatorade before you talk me into eating, even though my stomach feels like i’ve been drinking nothing but Gotham riverwater.

You pump me full of promethazine and we start with crackers but you let me go at my own pace. When i finish one and keep it down your face lights up and you tell me how well i’ve done, you kiss my cheeks.

i should feel patronized but i don’t because i’ll do this for you, i will do this for you.

And besides that you know what i need. You know just how to help my body recover.

The thing is that when my strength comes back my fight comes back right along with it, and you recognize this. You know that when you take part in my recovery you in turn take part in my warfare, and yet you show up at my door again and again with your bandages and your patient hands and your warm words ready to patch my body back together. Half the time it’s Batman that breaks me down again.

It’s just another mystery that you’ve cloaked yourself in, that i have yet to maze my way through.

 

Brown and red and brown swirl down towards the drain as your hands soap me over. Little click clicks echo all around us as bits of gravel hit the acrylic. i must’ve made a sound of discomfort because you say

 _i’ll make it fast. Just so you’re not sleeping in a layer of mud._ The idea takes me somewhere and repeats itself and repeats itself and repeats until i’m buried under layers and layers of warm wet earth with worms and burrowers majoring under all my skin slowly taking my body under until there’s nothing left

 _Joker?_ Your voice snaps me back onto the bathtub bench, in your house, between your hands. _Where did you go just now._

 _A good place_ , i say. You raise an eyebrow. _i was dead_ , i tell you. _None of this mattered._ Your hands still. Your eyes widen. Then both of your arms are around me gently drawing me in.

 _i…_ your voice is choked. _i wish i could make you not think like that._

 _You can’t,_ i whisper into the muscles of your shoulder. You pull away, and nod, and start to rinse me off.

_Things could be different for you, Joker._

_Things already are different, Bruce._

_You know what i mean_ , you sigh, and look away from me.

By the time you wrap me in a towel put me to bed and wire me up i’m so far away that the only thing anchoring me at all is the warmth of your form, as i fall asleep in your embrace.

 

When i wake again i try to sit up in bed. A machine shrieks and you look worried which probably means that my stats aren’t good. Somewhere between you calling _Alfred can you come here please_ and an eighteen gauge needle slipping neatly into the crook of my arm there are two pairs of hands on me changing my shirt. i must be in bad shape, for you to have called your old man this late at night.

Shadows behind you warp out and expand across the wall sending my sense of gravity spinning.

Outside anyone screams loud with a knife at their throat. Part of me needs to get out there, be involved in that. Part of me needs to stay here in your warm house with you as my shadow. Your old man lays a fold of cold wet against my forehead as we lie on a mattress so big that we’re miles apart. Usually you prefer to stay close but apparently i’m too fragile to touch.

Then the drugs begin to work and the vertigo settles. i don’t like them because i don’t work well this way but when i’m on downers it gives my body time to heal and it gives me time with you. The downers let me sleep.

You wake me every few hours, walk me to the bathroom and back. At some point the sky turns from black to grey and you’re taking out the cannula so that i can rest without having to get up to piss.

 _Close your eyes,_ you murmur as you slip an ativan into my mouth. _i’ll be here._

 

They don’t stop hitting me even when i’m face down on the floor. They call me faggot and murderer and rapist and terrorist and i laugh at them as i spit blood because everything they’re saying is true and it's hilarious and i’m gasping _sticks and stones_ with my last breaths as one of them hauls me up by the collar, i’m using all my remaining strength to slug him square in the jaw before my laughter dissolves and i’m

choking, coughing up blood opening my eyes to a black ceiling, still coughing with my stomach in my throat. i bolt

upright nauseous and gagging and spitting up copper with flashes of boots kicking at my face warping in and out between my hands as i catch red flecks with my fingers

 

 _Joker_. Your voice comes from a long way off.

 

i blink

and the kicking sequence repeats itself once more, expanding out across my entire plane of vision before it all snaps back and it’s you kneeling in front of me holding out a wad of tissue, saying

 _Joker. Pinch your nose._ i do as you say, and when you slide a towel across my lap i spit a clump of red mucus into it. Then the nausea peaks my stomach heaves and a trickle of blood spills from my mouth onto the white fabric.

 _Ugh,_ i manage before my stomach clenches and more blood comes up.

 _i know,_ you say. Your hand is on my shoulder your voice is sad. _It’s just because you were sleeping on your back when your nose started bleeding. Get it up; you’ll feel better._

My hair’s pulled away from my face and i heave again and your hand’s rubbing up and down my back, and for a minute or two that’s all there is: the copper taste on my tongue and my stomach wrenching itself sore and the rhythm of your hand on my spine. When i can breathe again i look at you and see that it’s you that i’ve slugged, that there’s blood on your lip. i reach up to cup your chin my fingers are shaking shaking shaking

 _It’s not your fault,_ you tell me, taking my hand. _Don’t worry about it.  
_

_i don’t mind getting hit, i tell you. i don’t mind that part at all. It’s when i can’t hit back that sucks._ Your brow creases.

 _What do you mean?_ You ask. i don’t say anything.

 _Time to go back to bed_ , you say as you sit back against the headboard and reach for a bottle of water. _Come here for minute. Sit with me and relax._

i come here. i sit with you. i let you hold the bottle up to my face, i rinse and spit. We lie down and you wrap tight around me and your arms grow roots into the bed, straight into the floor and through to the dirt where they latch on and spread.

 _Right now you’re mine,_ you whisper. _And until i say otherwise, nobody is going to take you away from me._ And i smile, because

that’s true to some extent. Sometimes i am yours. Sometimes

i’m a mad dog, just looking for a throat to tear into.

Sometimes i am a detonator, at the end of a thousand miles of line, waiting for someone to push the button.

And sometimes i’m just a worn out old ghost of myself broken and sick and shaking, crawling into the shell of your open arms.

 

_"I can't tell you how many ways that I've sat_

  _And viewed my life today, but I can tell you_

_I don't think that I can find an easier way_

_So if I see you walking hand in hand in hand_

_With a three armed man, you know I'll understand_

  _But you should've been in my shoes yesterday_

[—St. Andrew's Fall: Blind Melon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5sm-LcQhCo)


End file.
